Do telephone answering services cater to specific niches?

A telephone answering service can work for many business models, types and sizes. The service can be used by companies across industries such as IT, medicine, law, property management or even computer support or consulting. The list is basically endless. Some clients may be large corporations getting thousands of calls per month, others will be small businesses that receive just a few.

Can I get a record of my calls?

Call centers collect call data such as numbers, name of the caller, reason for calling and location. Good telephone answering services will give you a call list either on an Ad hoc basis or a scheduled basis.

What is call patching?

When the CSR (customer service representative) takes a call from your customer and transfers it to another number, it is called call patching.

How much will the service cost?

The cost of your service depends on your time plan (the amount of time purchased by you). You will normally be charged by the minute. You can select a monthly base amount for a fixed number of minutes. If it goes beyond that, you will have to pay a nominal charge for every extra minute. So if you choose a 60 minute base plan, everything over 60 minutes will be charged nominally.

How many minutes should I sign up for?

In many ways it is just like getting a cell phone plan. You don’t know how many minutes you are going to use every month, so plan realistically. If you want a call center to take your orders, such calls will take a longer time than a call that involves just leaving a message. It depends on the type of business you are in. A good inbound/outbound or a telephone answering call center will assign a dedicated, experienced account executive who assists you in choosing the plan that best suits your needs.